Wednesday, 4 November 2015

Fear and Loathing in Anatolia

I never liked
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the current President of my country. Yet, for a long
time, I was ready to give him and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) the
benefit of the doubt. They seemed to have deserved it then, as the Army flexed
its muscles for yet another bout of interventionism and the secular opposition
remain obsessed about whether a head-scarfed first lady would taint Ataturk’s
house that served as the Presidential residence.

Personally, I
lost patience with Mr Erdogan upon hearing him during the budget talks in the
parliament in 2010. He has a tendency to talk about government officials in
possessive terms: “my mayor,” “my governor,” “my police” etc. I had
optimistically assumed that such use was to express his sense of duty as the
Prime Minister. Then, he refers to the mayor of Izmir –an opposition
stronghold- by turning to the opposition’s seats and saying “your mayor.” It
quickly became clear that Erdogan didn’t consider himself to be a servant of those
citizens who don’t vote for him. He didn’t even consider us to be part of the
nation. He kept referring to “those people.” “Those people” wanted unhindered
internet because they wanted watch porn, “those people” opposed alcohol sale
restrictions to get drunk all night, “those people” took to Gezi Park not to
protect a lonely green space in a concrete megapolis but to stage a coup
against the government.

It is such
discourse that Erdogan has used so viciously that has led to the polarization
and division that is prevalent in Turkey today. Erdogan has now spent years
demonizing “those people” to his constituents. And he has built an immense
propaganda machine to entrench his vision to the country. It is an open secret
in Turkey that contracts are handed out to the party’s own Islamist elite and
that getting them frequently entails the establishment of pro-government
newspapers or broadcasters to amplify those of state-owned media. Their
collective messaging is so heavily controlled that at times 6 or 7 newspapers
will contain exactly the same headline. Meanwhile, opposition news sources face
trials, imprisonment, audits or bans. Since June 7 elections, 40 journalist
detained while working, an AKP MP led a lynch mob to the headquarters of
Hurriyet news daily and the paper’s columnist Ahmet Hakan was beaten up by
thugs after exchanging words with a pro-government columnist. Turkey accounts
for 72% of governmental censor
requests that Twitter receives, reflecting an attempt to choke independent
reporting in social media.

Such stark
divide of media and news sources have the effect of deepening the polarization that
Erdogan feeds from. There are very few platforms that feature both opposition
and pro-government voices on equal footing. So you have a situation in which
consumers of the pro-government media are essentially being subjected to
government PR on a daily basis. This allows Erdogan and AKP brass get away with
outrageous lies designed to manipulate public sentiment, such as claiming
arch-enemies PKK and ISIS collaborated to undertake the October bombings of a
Kurdish rally in Ankara, or that Germany orchestrated Gezi protests to prevent
Istanbul’s new airport becoming Europe’s new hub over Frankfurt. Pro-government
media furthers Erdogan’s demonization of “those people”, who implausibly work
with German intelligence, George Soros, ISIS and PKK all at the same time. It
is small wonder then that the social connections between the supporters and the
opponents of the government are severely broken, to the point that a minute’s
silence at a soccer game for Ankara bombing victims was too
much to ask. Turkey is now a society in disarray, defined by mutual hatred
and suspicion.

Since the June
7 elections, Erdogan’s wrath has been focused on the Kurdish movement led
by People’s Democracy Party (HDP), whose unexpected success thwarted an AKP
victory. Erdogan was shocked at the perceived disobedience and ungratefulness
of the Kurdish movement. His government had been relatively kinder to Kurds and
a peace process had been on the way. So how dare they oppose him and his desire
to establish an executive presidency? Erdogan’s fury led to the collapse of the
peace process, proving once and for all that the President’s massive ego and
intolerance to any form of opposition took priority over the well-being of the
country. An army major, who lost his brother in the renewed violence with PKK,
put it best: “How come those who were talking about peace yesterday are chanting
for war today?”

Unfortunately,
Erdogan’s plan to ponder to Turkish nationalism and stoking the fears of a new
Kurdish insurgency has worked. According to November 1
election results, AKP regained the Turkish nationalist and Kurdish
conservative vote it had lost, and is set for one party rule again. Politics of
fear won big in Turkey.

Erdogan’s rule has
involved fierce majoritarianism, weakening of an independent judiciary and
creeping authoritarianism. However, I think the worst of all has been the
massive propaganda machine he has built. Millions of people take AKP PR as
news, never even being presented with the opposition’s views or evidence. They
buy implausible claims like “PKK bombed the Kurdish rally in Ankara.” They do
not know or simply ignore the fact that an opposition paper had identified the
ISIS cell that conducted the bombings back in July. They do not question
why their government was unable or unwilling to stop ISIS members to operate
within its soil for months. And they are slowly but surely building up a hatred
for “those people,” the opponents of the government who are behind all that is
evil. The echo chamber that Erdogan and AKP have built has become a behemoth
that can get out of control any minute.

Under the
current conditions, the short term will be a tough test in Turkey. However, I
remain optimistic about the long term. The new generation of the country, who
are increasingly better educated and more connected to the world, will
eventually find a way to free themselves of the shackles of dogma and dirty
propaganda. The trick will be to limit the damage until then.

Emrah Keskin is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science. He holds an MA from New York University and a BA from Sabanci University in Istanbul. He previously worked as a journalist in Turkey with Radikal and Haberturk. His current research focuses on the impact of mental health trauma on post-conflict reconciliation. E-mail: keskin@ualberta.ca Twitter: @k13e

Department of Political Science, University of Alberta

What do political scientists do? Politics is about power, and political science understands the processes, ideas, and institutions through which power is structured, as well as power's effects. Thus, we look at subjects that range from Canadian elections and political parties to the ethics of war and post-conflict management, from the political economy of the global South to theories of justice and citizenship, and from environmental movements to gender relations. In the Department of Political Science, our research and teaching engage with the big questions and with the critical events that shape politics around the world.